


Jagged

by Bookreader525



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, F/M, One Shot, but here we are, idk how or why i let a fic about a sitcom get this dark, jonah is sad, so is amy, they help each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookreader525/pseuds/Bookreader525
Summary: She's not his first, but she is his only. Who ever said two jagged pieces can't make something whole?AKA: Jonah suffers a terrible loss, and Amy reintroduces him to living.





	Jagged

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE READ - this takes place in an AU with some canon elements, but not many. also i'm a terrible person who likes to make characters i love suffer. i'm sorry. genuinely i am. but PLEASE be warned that this ventures into dark territory, with descriptions of gun violence (and the awful effects of that) and much description of a terribly sad jonah. i'm sorry.
> 
> P.S. i actually don't hate kelly! really i don't. she's sweet and cute and all, but amy/jonah will always be the top ship for me that is taking a LONG ASS time to get going. but yeah anyway i originally wasn't even gonna use kelly in this, just some random woman, but i decided it would be more bittersweet if i added in a familiar character instead of a rando one-time OC. so yeah before i ramble on too long i hope ya'll enjoy and again i'm so sorry for making this so dark i don't know what wrong with me!

Jonah opens his eyes and finds himself hunched over, forehead pressed against a peeling leather steering wheel. A sheen of sweat glistens on every inch of exposed skin, the chilly moisture snaking up his arms and down his spine. He takes in a slow breath and holds it for a minute, staring at the odometer and letting his vision go double. Fuzzy numbers and shapes split into two and drift off toward his peripheral. Then he blinks hard, washing away the illusions.

He falls away from the wheel, and his seat jerks a little in protest at the heavy way he collapses back against it. He realizes he's still holding his breath; he lets it go, feeling as every fiber of his lungs deflates, relaxes, releases.

Then, at last, he kicks open the car door and starts to hop out, only to be yanked back in by the seatbelt. He grumbles and unbuckles himself before going on his way.

He's always had this strange sort of affection for Cloud 9, and he isn't afraid to admit it. It's a decent place. It always has exactly what he needs. He knows the entire layout of the store by heart. He could probably land a job here easily if he wanted one. But that would be ridiculous. He has a perfectly adequate job already, packed neatly into his little cubicle with a glowing computer monitor covered in sticky notes. If he closes his eyes, he can picture his office surroundings easily: the groan of his old swivel chair, the whine of the copier, the smells of lukewarm coffee, musty paper, and stale ink. He has just one picture frame resting on his desk, peeking out from behind the edge of the dusty screen, containing a photo of his wife from two or three years ago. Every day, he nudges the frame a little more behind the computer. One day, she'll disappear completely.

Jonah meanders the aisles of Cloud 9, not really looking for anything specific this time. It took all his willpower not to turn his car's wheels toward the bar to drink his liver away or to P.F. Chang's to eat his heart out.

Eventually his fingers wrap around a pack of chocolate chip cookies. He never used to eat like this. He and his wife are joggers, supposedly— it's more like him panting and tasting blood in the back of his throat while watching her wavy ponytail and cute butt run farther and farther ahead. As if it's a race.

He makes his way to a checkout station, a flickering number three. The cookie package crinkles menacingly inside his shaking, squeezing hand.

The woman at the counter is quiet, working nimbly as she scans the package and drops it in a plastic bag. Jonah has a brief internal battle with himself: to make eye contact or not to make eye contact? It's such a struggle for him sometimes, to lift his tired gaze and awkwardly grin at another person in a not-sexual-predator kind of way. He decides it'll be a no-go on the eye contact this time around. He keeps his eyes cast down, following the movement of her hand as she picks up the bag and transfers it over to him. Her skin is smooth, a creamy olive color. He wonders what lotion she uses. His knuckles are chapped as hell.

He emerges back outside, and a blast of wind hits him like a brick wall from the left. Cursing St. Louis winters, he drops back into his car and eats three-quarters of the package of cookies in the parking lot like the shameful loser he is.

* * *

 

_The first time he ever saw her was in eighth grade, but they never talked one-on-one until second semester junior year. She had always been a familiar face, someone he would glimpse from across the room in biology class or notice down the hall, shuffling along with her head bowed._

_It was a fresh Monday, slate wiped clean for the week, and for once his raging acne was at ease. He slicked back his hair with gel, but the sweat at his hairline made a few black sprigs spring loose by the end of first period._

_He approached her that day in English. She had big eyes, he noticed, doe-like, as if she always had them widened for effect. Her hair was the perfect kind of blonde, a perfect mix of waves and curls. She smiled at him like she'd known him her whole life._

_"_ _U_ _m, hi," he said. "I, uh… I mean, you probably already know my name, or maybe not, but… I'm—"_

 _"_ _Jonah," she finished for him. Her smile was radiant. "It's about time you said hello." She stuck out her hand, and the awkwardness of the gesture melted away when her small fingers nestled behind his longer, gangly digits. "I'm—"_

_He grinned. "Kelly."_

* * *

 

"You can't keep a secret from me forever, you know," she titters, all but throwing herself over the kitchen island out of enthusiasm. "C'mon, just tell me!"

"Nope," he answers, smirking into the fridge. "You have to wait. It's a surprise."

Fourteen years of marriage, he thinks, and no children. He knows people talk about them; their families, their children-equipped friends. She knows they talk, too.

To be fair, they married right out of high school. It had seemed like quite the idea at the time, taking off in his rusty Subaru to elope in the city hall three towns away.

He scans over the half-empty milk carton and container of leftover lasagna and thinks of kissing her. He thinks of cradling her petite body in his arms and stripping off that cute strapless floral top she likes, planting kisses along her collarbone, trailing all the way up to her strawberry lips, pressing himself into her while she moans into the sweet spot between his neck and shoulder blade.

Jonah straightens so fast he nearly nails the top of his head on the freezer door. He closes the fridge empty-handed and spins around, but she's gone. He tilts his head, confused. The kitchen is dark, moonlight slicing through the window and flowing into a puddle on the granite island. A mess of takeout boxes cover it. He takes a wild swing and they all topple to the floor. His wedding band is made of lava and it burns his finger. He slides down to the floor, panting with his cheek against the cool tile until the pounding in his chest goes away.

* * *

 

Adam never liked listening to music in the car. He never said why, but he hated it. Amy turns up the radio in her car and softly sings along to the terrible Nickelback song, her fingers drumming the wheel. She can't explain why, but  _damn_ does it feel good.

It should be well past Emma's bedtime by now. Secretly she prays her daughter is asleep. She just can't handle staying up all night with a sick baby again. Cold season has been rough on her household, she thinks as she wipes her dripping nose.

She pulls up to the curb and kills the engine, shutting the car door slowly as she gets out as if Emma could hear her all the way out here. She proceeds to crunch her way through the snow, almost slip on a patch of ice on the step up to the front door, then fall inside the house like she's falling through a portal.

As usual, she finds Mrs. Wilson seated on the armchair in the living room. Usually the kind old woman is reading a fat novel, threading her knitting needles through a mellow-colored fabric, or snoozing with her head leaning daintily on her shoulder. Tonight she seems to be asleep again. Amy tiptoes over to the chair and touches her forearm.

"Mrs. Wilson," she whispers, words cutting harshly through the silence. The air is heavy with silence, in fact, more so than usual. The old woman's eyes are still closed.

Icy claws of fear grip Amy's stomach and twist. Hesitantly, she pushes up Mrs. Wilson's sleeve and presses her fingers to the woman's veiny wrist.

There's not even a whisper of a pulse. Her skin is lukewarm, not yet fully tainted by the cold kiss of death.

"Shit," Amy says, standing up and staring sullenly at the sole caregiver of her child. No other neighbor is friendly enough, child care is too expensive, Adam is too busy screwing girlfriends a couple model years newer, and Amy spends ninety percent of her time working just to earn a living wage.

Then she breaks. Her knees meet the ratty carpet and she sobs quietly, her fingernails scraping Mrs. Wilson's shoes and her ears yearning to hear the rickety voice: "It's nothing, dear. Of course I can watch Emma again tomorrow."

* * *

 

He isn't quite sure when it started happening— it's just that one moment, he's in a place… then when he reopens his eyes, he's somewhere else. He'd closed his eyes on stark white hospital linoleum and opened them on rich red carpet.

He stands abruptly from the chair. He's wearing a simple black and white suit that doesn't quite fit him right. The sleeves are tight but the chest is loose. It hangs off his body like a rag.

Voices creep all around him, different conversations mingling together, all conveying mixed tones of despair and judgment.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and moves forward; the crowd seems to part for him. Someone approaches him, says something. Then another person goes up to him. Jonah sweeps his gaze over their faces and longs to punch the sympathetic smile off their taut, straining lips.

He glances to the left and notices his wife in the distance. She looks more polished than usual, her face frozen in a smile that looks more natural than most of the other smiles being thrown at him here. He meets her eyes, and still she smiles at him. With every passing second she looks less natural. Most photographs, he supposes, are more artificial than anything. He sniffs and marches out to the funeral home's lobby.

On the other side of the building, a service is being held for someone else. Jonah watches the strangers milling around over there with mild interest, then turns his face down. A bowl of candies sit on a table facing the main entrance. He plunges his hand among the colorful wrappers, reminded of the stale candies that used to sit on his grandmother's mantle. His fingers find a strawberry lozenge, and he pops it into his mouth with a desolate sigh.

A faint shape appears in the corner of his vision, coming from the other funeral. He pays no mind to it, only scanning a brochure on cremation services to keep his mind occupied.

"I hate these things," a voice says. It stands out from the all the other voices; it's firm, almost authoritative, and very close to his ear. It's not the voice typically heard at funerals, and he finds it refreshing.

Her hand goes for a hard candy in a green wrapper, and she snorts a little. "I mean… I hate these candies, not funerals. Not that I love funerals, but… ugh, never mind."

He chooses to try for eye contact, and the second he drags his gaze upward, his heart stumbles to a halt. His brain can't find words apt enough for her, and his tongue is dry as sandpaper in his mouth.

She strives desperately for more awkward small talk. Her reasoning is beyond him— but he's never been more glad to have someone near.

"Yeah, I'm here for my neighbor Mrs. Wilson. What was her first name? Henrietta. I think it was Henrietta. Yeah. Anyway, she would always watch my daughter for me, until… now. Now I have nobody to watch Emma."

Jonah is surprised to notice a feeling of amusement spreading through his system. She's selfish. She's like the side of his wife that was always there, but hidden. It's so, so refreshing it almost makes his Jell-O knees cave in. The strawberry lozenge crunches loudly between his molars.

"So… who are you here for?" She tilts her body a little to the right to read the temporary sign set up behind him. He watches her lips form his wife's name, but she doesn't say them aloud. " _Kelly Simms_ ," she mouths, and the name doesn't have enough weight to it to linger in the air. It's the first time Jonah has heard  _her_ name and not felt like he was drowning in memories and things he could've done different and what he would've had—

"Sorry, I- I probably shouldn't have asked. These things can be personal, I guess." Her gorgeous dark eyes flick downward, away from him. They remind him of chocolate gems. "Well, I… I should probably get back to my funeral, or, uh— y'know, the other funeral." She starts to back away, and internally he panics.

"Wait!" he exclaims. It's the first word he's spoken to her. "Jonah," he then states awkwardly. She blinks a couple times, and he scratches behind his neck. "I'm Jonah. My name is— yeah. Nice to meet you." He sticks out his hand.

She takes it, shaking slowly. "Amy," she tells him. He's captivated.

* * *

 

She works at the local Cloud 9, he soon discovers. Or rather, he was just too dumb to realize it until now. He knew he'd recognize that smooth hand anywhere.

He makes a point to go there every day. He forms a rough outline of her schedule in his head, takes notice of all the patterns. Some days he wanders the store until he stumbles upon her stocking paper towels all the way in an aisle in the rear of the store. And she doesn't find it creepy or annoying— every time she smiles shyly and guiltily lets him help her stock the paper towels or cereal boxes or dish detergent bottles.

His heart is open again. After being tucked away tightly for so long, it's now blossoming for the first time in months. His casual walking turns into jogging, then running, then sprinting during his quest to find her day after day.

Then he falls sick with a sinus infection, and he can't bring himself to crawl out of bed and up the street to the superstore. That's when she calls him.

"Hey," her voice crackles into his ear. His heart melts and pools into a mushy puddle at his feet. "You still have a landline, huh?"

"That must mean you still use the phonebook," he points out.

"Only rarely," she says. "I didn't see you today, so of course I was worried, and well… it occurred to me we never exchanged cell numbers. So I dragged out this enormous, dusty old book and called every Jonah and… yeah, I wish you'd told me your last name."

He chews on the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. "Simms," he says.

The line is quiet for a moment, then she goes, "Yeah. Was… was Kelly—"

"My sister," he blurts out before he can think it through.

When they hang up, he looks down at the gold band and wonders when it started feeling foreign on his finger.

* * *

 

She can tell when he shuts her out. It bothers her. Something terrible must have happened to his sister, and she can't help but let curiosity get the better of her.

Except, just when she's about to Google his sister's name, something stabs at her. She bites her lip and stares at her phone, then shakes her head and deletes the search. It wouldn't be fair. He should tell her when he's ready. If he ever is.

She sits on the old, sagging couch, cradling Emma close to her chest as she watches late night news.

" _Tonight on News 8— it's been two months since the horrific shooting at our neighborhood mall, and people are still demanding answers. Who was the gunman? And how were they able to get away so fast? Here we have an eyewitness account of the events._ "

Amy shudders and shuts off the TV.

* * *

 

"My car broke down yesterday," she tells Jonah. "I have to take the bus home."

That's how she ends up in his car. He's about to put it in reverse to back out of the parking space, but she rests her hand on his arm and he freezes.

Had she really never noticed it before? Was she too naïve to see it? The gold wedding band on his left hand stands out sharply now, glinting in the fading sunlight coming through the windshield.

"You're too good to be true," she murmurs.

His head turns to her, and he flounders helplessly.

"Why the hell have you been pursuing me all this time if you're married?" She hears the first mumblings of an excuse leave his lips, but she groans and kicks open her door. "I'm taking the bus."

"Wait!" he yells.

"Dammit, Jonah!" She spins around and stamps her foot. "I've been through this kind of B.S. before and I'm not just gonna sit idly and let it break me this time!"

His eyebrows crinkle together. "Please, just get back in the car. Let me explain." He throws the car into park so forcefully the vehicle jerks a little. He raises his left hand and slides off the ring. "I forgot to take it off today," he says. "It's hard for me to look at it, but sometimes I forget and I— I don't know how to—"

Realization dawns on her, and hesitantly she sits back down. "She was your wife. Kelly."

He props his elbows on the steering wheel and places his forehead on his palms. A shaky breath rattles through his lungs. "Yes," he says. "It would've been fifteen years next month."

She wants to ask what happened, really badly she wants to ask, but she can't bring herself to do it. She isn't the most open person herself, yet she has been more open with Jonah than with anyone else. He knows about her divorce and her daughter, the two most personal subjects to her. In this single minute, she now realizes she doesn't really understand him at all.

"Why did you lie to me?" she asks instead. He leans forward, and his lips brush hers.

"I was scared it would drive you away," he says. "I'm not right, Amy. I'm broken. It'll take a lot of work to fix me."

Her breath ghosts his parted mouth. "It's a good thing I've always been a hard worker then," she remarks.

"I think… I think I need to work on myself alone," Jonah tells her. He leans away, and her lips are ice.

The drive home is spent in silence.

* * *

 

_He noticed his phone buzzing from its place next to the mousepad. His eyes flitted over and saw his wife's name. He shoved the phone out of his line of sight and stared and waited until the numbers on his computer screen were blurred. He sighed heavily. He hated his job._

* * *

 

He was getting carried away. Hanging out with Amy so much— he was losing what he had. And Kelly— he was trying with all his might to hang on to every last scrap of her. When he was with Amy, he pretended his eyes were his hands when he looked over her glowing bronze skin and glossy dark locks and her perfect curves and oh god, her  _everything_. He imagined running his lips over her body. He pretended every quirk of her mouth was a flirtatious move toward him. Hell, maybe it was. He thought of what it would be like to sit in a small café with her for hours and talk about nothing and everything at the same time. Then he would squeeze his eyes shut and things shifted and skewed in his twisted mind. Her carefully narrowed brown eyes became this big, doe-like blue gaze. Her short brunette waves became long blonde curls. And he would sink all over again.

* * *

 

One of the times he met Amy at Cloud 9, she was wearing this particular nametag. Thinking back on it now, he remembers how weirdly cute he thought it was— that she disliked strange customers using her real name, so she would use the nametags of past employees to keep her identity, or dignity, or something, safe.

He walked up to her and waved before shoving his clammy hand back into the pocket of his wrinkled khakis. There she was, stocking bottles of medicine. She turned to say hi back.

He could actually feel the blood drain from his face. He imagined his heart beating up his throat and leaping out of his mouth and landing with a splat on the white linoleum at their feet.

"Hi, I'm Kelly" the nametag read, and his surroundings spun hazily around him. It was the first time his worlds collided.

* * *

 

 _"_ _I don't understand," she said. "What are you saying?"_

 _"_ _I- I don't know," Jonah said. He stirred the spoon through his lukewarm coffee even though the sugar was dissolved and the cream was all mixed in. "I just… I feel like I need some air."_

_Kelly chewed on her nails even though they were freshly manicured. He watched the dark blue polish chip away under her teeth. Her mascara-laden lashes were cast downward. "What did I do?" she whispered after a while. "Where did I mess up?"_

_"_ _I— you— it's not you. You didn't mess up anywhere," he stammered. "It's just that- that I'm a little bit, uh, tired. I need a break. I want a break."_

_Her hand fell down on the table heavily, the glimmer of her wedding diamond catching his eye as her fingers curled inward into a fist. "Jonah, how the hell can you just take a 'break' from a fourteen-year marriage?"_

_He swallowed and didn't answer. He couldn't meet her eyes._

_"_ _I thought everything was fine," she went on. "Am I— am I really that blind?"_

_She wasn't mistaken. Everything was fine. Great, actually. She was beautiful and funny and all, they had long talks after dinner every night dotted with laughs, the sex was still amazing and hell, he couldn't go a day without pressing her against a wall and kissing her deeply. He wasn't sure why something here felt misplaced. She was a perfect companion, and had been for a long-ass time._

_"_ _I'm sorry," he said dumbly, because he couldn't think of anything else to say._

_Her voice went quiet, and he dared to lift his head slightly. "Jonah, this… this is really bad timing. I thought you would be in a better mood tonight."_

_"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _I have to tell you something," she said. Her fingers worked furiously with a napkin._

 _"_ _What?" he repeated._

_She broke eye contact and rested her forehead in a hand. Some pale strands slipped past her ear, falling in her face and shielding her expression from him like a curtain. He heard her inhale. "Jonah, I'm pregnant. This was supposed to be good news."_

_He picked up the coffee cup and held it to his lips for a long time before responding._

* * *

 

It was too easy, he thinks. Her car was collecting dust and critters in the garage, so he sells it. Her clothes were musty and forgotten in a closet, so he donates them. Then he spends three hours sitting on the floor in a sea of her possessions taken out of boxes and bags and drawers and he cries hard. It's the kind of cry that takes all the breath away from him and makes his chest hurt and makes his lungs collapse inward.

Later, he shows up at the house of Kelly's parents. "I was cleaning out a closet and I… uh, I thought you might want some of her things." He thrusts a filled box into their arms. He'd thought long and hard about it. In the box is both of their wedding rings.

"Thank you, son," her father says.

"We should keep in touch," her mother says.

Jonah dips his head. "Yeah." He turns and goes. The Watsons are such nice people, he thinks. Too nice. Too much like their daughter. It's a shame he'll never see them again.

He gets home and cries some more. He picks up his phone and calls Amy.

* * *

 

It's happened again, his brain screams. The alarm bells are ringing at a deafening volume, pounding from inside his skull. He can feel the hammers smashing against his temples.

He had gone back home to Kelly, he knows that. He can recall rushing through the door and finding her sitting on their bed, slippery apologies falling off his tongue and lingering in the air before becoming trapped in the suddenly nonexistent space between their lips. He was kissing her, mumbling that everything would be alright, kissing her, saying he couldn't wait, kissing her, her fingers massaging his scalp and his fingers teasing soft wisps of her hair, and his eyes were closed for the longest time.

He opens them, and his fingers are buried in a different tangle of hair. The mouth moving in rhythm with his is different, not as sweet but all the more pleasing. She's not as vocal as Kelly was; she kisses him quietly, any unnecessary words suspended in the hot air between their flushed cheeks and sweaty foreheads. She treats it like a job to be done, almost, and it's so unexpected he can physically feel his heart speed up and his want for her increase tenfold.

"Amy," he mutters.

For so long he'd wondered what it would be like to wake up alone for once. But fuck, when the emptiness in the bed got to him— it was pure hell that Amy only accentuated. He thought about waking up to an ocean of brunette waves in his face rather than blonde. He thought about leaning down only slightly to form a kiss rather than stooping down while she stood on her toes. He thought about discussions filled with bickering and playful disagreements rather than flawless nothings.

And now, as they separate and he wanders deeper into the dark forest of her eyes, he knows. He fell asleep kissing an obligation and woke up kissing a dream.

* * *

 

He plants a "For Sale" sign in the yard and gets in his car and drives up to the familiar office building.

He slams down his briefcase on his boss's desk and announces, "I quit."

"Jonah, you haven't worked here for six months," his boss says.

He gets back in his car and drives home. The pantry is empty save for a partially-eaten package of stale cookies.

* * *

 

It no longer feels like a betrayal or sinful indulgence. He looks forward to every day with her, looks forward to silly conversations and casual meetings of lips and telling her everything. He tears off the "fragile" label and replaces it with a big band-aid marked "healing."

He invites Amy to his place the day before the sale closes. He has to be completely moved out in less than twenty-four hours.

"It was a starter home we bought," he explains to her as he gives the bland and rushed tour. "To, y'know, start things." He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his pants.

"It's a nice house," she says. The compliment is hollow as ever but it fills his heart nonetheless.

* * *

 

There are a lot of things Jonah hasn't packed up yet. Amy keeps her eyes peeled for any and all clues. She feels like a detective scouring the home of a suspect.

He's gone to retrieve a single glass from the barren cabinets and fill it with water for her. She steps over an open cardboard box and her eyes land on a line of photo frames hung on the wall, descending diagonally toward where the TV set used to be.

The top picture is a gorgeous wedding photo. Something low-budget, clearly, just like hers with Adam had been. But there Jonah is, lifting his bride and spinning her around on the marble steps of some city hall. Amy's eyes travel on down the staircase of photos. Each one contains the smiling face of a woman— Kelly, Jonah's Kelly. According to these, the mysterious Kelly who has long plagued Amy's mind was a pretty, perky blonde character who liked frilly shirts and lots of makeup. It's such a shock to Amy when she feels a prickle of jealousy somewhere in her gut.

Then Jonah is standing next to her, and wordlessly he offers her the glass of tap. She drinks slowly at first, taking tiny sips. She bets Kelly ate like a baby bird, picking at her salads as if there was no other way to eat.

Amy coughs and gulps the rest of the water.

"Thanks," she breathes, handing him back the glass. He rests it on a coffee table, the only furniture left in this room.

"There's something I need to show you," he says. She watches as he plucks the pictures off the wall, one by one, until they're reduced to a stack thrown into the bottom of another box. She swallows and follows him up the stairs and down the hall.

All of these rooms are actually empty, she notices as he leads her along. Then they reach a final bedroom. Jonah gives the door a light kick with his foot and it swings open with a creak.

The room is a pale pink color with plush carpet. It's the only area that still looks like it's part of a lived-in house: free of cardboard boxes, and overflowing with belongings. Jonah crosses his arms tightly over his chest. His eyes are frozen on the window while Amy rakes her gaze over everything. Crib, toy box, rocking chair, changing table. It's comparable to the room she has at home for Emma.

"You have a kid?" she blurts out. As soon as she says it, it hits her how thoughtless that must seem. And why does she sound so frustrated?

"I was… I was going to," he answers. She can read him like an open book. This is insanely difficult for him. His fingers are squeezing his biceps to the point of bruising, and he keeps shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His eyes are bloodshot and neck shiny with perspiration.

"Oh my god," she whispers.

"Look, I… I know you've probably been wondering how it happened," he continues. "You've been so open with me about your past, s- so you deserve to know."

He sits down on the floor, and she joins him. He takes a deep breath and picks at his cuticles.

"Seven months ago, I needed new shoes. I was too lazy to go out and buy some, so… my wife insisted on running to the shoe store in the mall to grab them for me, because she knew the kind of sneakers I liked. I was at work. Normally she wouldn't be at the mall at ten in the morning, but she was on maternity leave from her job. It was about a quarter after ten when I noticed my phone ringing. I let it go." He gulps, Adam's apple bobbing shakily, and she wants nothing more than to squeeze his hand. "A- a guy with a gun came to the mall a little before that, apparently. He was angry, disturbed about something, wanted to stir up a little chaos. He stood in a central area of the mall and shot randomly, just… bullets flying and bouncing off everywhere." He lifts his eyes to Amy's, and she's intrigued to see his face is completely dry. "I- I don't know what my wife was doing when that happened. Maybe she was hiding, and tried to run, or maybe it was almost instant. But when the authorities got there, she— it— she was there." His voice falters. The words transfer from a smoothly paved road to a bumpy, pothole-ridden path. "She… she was too far gone. Bled out o- o- on the linoleum floor i- in front of Jamba Juice. Sh— she… she was hit in the chest and stomach two weeks before her due date."

Instantly Amy scoots over to him and envelops him in her arms. His sobs are dry and sound strange and choked. When he lets her view his face again, he only looks mildly upset.

"The message she left on my phone. I still haven't deleted it," he admits. His head shakes vigorously, his eyebrows scrunching together like strips of Velcro. "She sounds so calm. I don't get it. She sounds normal. Like it's just any other Tuesday morning at ten in the morning. It doesn't make sense b- because she called a minute before the guy started… you know. Sometimes I wonder if she knew."

"Knew what?"

"Knew what was going to happen. And maybe she didn't want to alarm me at the time. But I didn't even pick up my phone." He massages the stubble on his chin while she awkwardly wraps an arm behind his upper back to massage his left shoulder. "She was so… flighty sometimes. Innocent. But I think she understood in a way that I just didn't love her anymore. We were only together because of…" He trails off and gestures to the room around them.

Silence falls heavy, a shawl thrown over them and pressing down and reminding them of the relentless limits of gravity. "I'm so sorry," she says. "I wish I had gotten to meet her."

 _No you don't_ , she thinks.

More silence, then "I didn't mean to push you away," he says. "I thought it was too soon for us to be anything." He snorts a little behind his hand. His eyes trace imaginary patterns in the ceiling. "It would've been a girl," he says, not to her but to the room.

Amy tucks some hair behind her ear. "There's something I need to show you," she says.

* * *

 

 _"_ _Hey, Jo. Just called to let you know I'm at the mall, picking up your shoelaces and some other things. I found a couple more little outfits for the baby. I swear, I need to stop going in that store. I was talking to this lady and she was telling me about her daughter. Her name was Amelia. Amelia’s a cute name, don't you think? Well, I like it. Anyway, I should probably get going now. We love you, Jonah."_

He deletes the message, and with it he deletes their too-perfect suburban life.

* * *

 

Amy's house is insanely tiny: just a combo living room/kitchen open area, a powder-room-sized full bath, and two minuscule bedrooms.

"It's a wonder it's actually considered a house," Amy comments as she gives him the thirty-second tour.

"Yeah," Jonah chuckles half-heartedly. "I have been in larger apartments."

She gives him a light shove in the arm. "You wait here," she says suddenly. "I'll be right back." Before he can protest, she slips out the front door.

Jonah perches himself on the couch, staring at the blank TV like there's a fascinating action movie on.

There aren't many photos on the walls, he notices. She always says work is basically her main home, and now that statement really sinks in. His mind drifts to the apartment he'd just moved into three days ago. Already it's more decorated than Amy's house, already those walls tell more stories than these. Seeing the emptiness make his heart ache.

Then the front door opens and in comes Amy, carrying a sleeping bundle in her arms. He jumps up to help her in and close the door behind her.

"I had to pick her up from the new babysitter down the street," she says. "Would you like to hold her?"

"Emma," Jonah says dumbly.

Amy laughs. "Yep, that's her name." She ignores all his silent objections as she places the older infant in his arms. Emma is fast asleep. She's heavier than he expected she would be.

"I wish I was with her more," Amy mumbles as they retreat again to the couch. "I'm not with her enough."

Jonah holds Emma and thinks of his daughter. He remembers hoping she wouldn't look too much like him, but also not too much like her mother, because  _damn_ would that have hurt.

Then he looks down more at Emma and doesn't think of his daughter.

"Are you okay?" Amy asks. The question is velvety soft as it travels through the stuffy air to his soul.

"Yeah." He pecks her on the nose, and the smile is stretching his lips so much it hurts. "I think I am."

* * *

 

By now, all of Amy's coworkers at Cloud 9 know him by name.

He applies for a job there the next day.


End file.
